Jim Clark's History Of The World

BRIEFING - JIM CLARK'S HISTORY OF THE WORLD

November 14, 1996|By Jim Clark of The Sentinel Staff

ON THIS DATE in 1666 the first known blood transfusion was attempted. A Dr. Croone in London hooked up two dogs and transferred blood from one to the other. The donor dog died, but the other dog survived. Croone predicted that the process might be of ''mighty use to man's health.'' . . . In 1889 22-year-old reporter Nellie Bly (her real name was Elizabeth Cochrane) left from Hoboken, N.J., to try and travel around the world in less time than Phileas Fogg, the fictional hero of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days.

In 1896 Britain raised the speed limit from 4 to 14 miles per hour. . . . In 1909 Joseph McCarthy was born. McCarthy became a United States senator who fostered what became known as McCarthyism in the 1950s with his nearly always false charges that people were Communists. . . . In 1910 the first airplane flew from the deck of a ship.

In 1915 black educator and scientist Booker T. Washington died. His last words were ''Take me home. I was born in the South, I have lived and labored in the South, and I wish to die and be buried in the South.''

In 1963 an underwater volcano erupted near Iceland, creating the new island of Surtsey. . . . In 1969 Apollo 12 was launched. The flight included the second lunar landing.

The crew returned to Earth 10 days later. . . . In 1972 the Dow Jones industrial average hit 1,000 for the first time. . . . In 1993 Puerto Ricans voted against a referendum on United States statehood by a narrow margin - 48 percent to 46 percent. The island remains a commonwealth.